SRINAGAR: Shops and businesses were closed in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Saturday to protest India’s plan to build townships for Hindus who fled a rebellion in Muslim-majority areas.

Local political leaders criticized the plan to house nearly 200,000 Hindus in new townships as a conspiracy to create communal division by separating the region’s population along religious lines.

The issue of returning Hindus sparks high emotion in the mostly Muslim region. Many of the Hindus, known as Pandits, fled after a rebellion erupted in 1989 that they believed was aimed at wiping them out.

Muslims in the region, long unhappy with Indian rule, deny that Hindus were systematically targeted, and say India moved them out while casting Kashmir’s freedom struggle as extremism.

“Kashmiri Pandits are part and parcel of our society. We will live together, but we will not allow separate townships for them,” said Mohammed Yasin Malik, who leads a political group pushing for independence from India.

He compared the proposed townships to Israeli-type settlements, and said no one should be allowed “to turn Kashmir into another Palestine.”

Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus lived together peacefully for centuries before a 1947 war between India and Pakistan left Kashmir divided between the two as they gained independence from Britain. Within a decade, however, divisions emerged as many Muslims began mistrusting Indian rule and demanding independence or a full merger with neighboring Pakistan.

While the 1989 Muslim rebellion was largely suppressed, at least half a million Indian troops remain stationed in Kashmir, and anti-India sentiment still runs deep.